$array = str_split("0123456789bcdfghjkmnpqrstvwxyz");
str_split takes an optional 2nd param, the chunk length (default 1), so you can do things like:
$array = str_split("aabbccdd", 2);
// $array[0] = aa
// $array[1] = bb
// $array[2] = cc etc ...
You can also get at parts of your string by treating it as an array:
$string = "hello";
echo $string[1];
// outputs "e"